During Coverture

Means while the marriage lasts.

4 Mo. 159.

There is frequently great difficulty in construing the words "during the coverture" when those words occur in an antenuptial marriage settlement and the wife, at the time of the marriage, is pbssessed of other property than that mentioned in the settlement. The question whether such other property is or is not comprised in the words is one the determination of which depends very much on the circumstances of each case and especially on the context. "The authorities seem to be such, upon the whole, as tend to show that the settlement should be taken to apply only to property which should come in futuro to the wife, and not to that which was hers before." covenant comprises property which the husband shall become entitled 'in her right' — the question would be, whether the words, 'at any time during her now intended coverture' would apply. Surely you cannot exclude from the duration of the coverture the first moment of its continuance. The moment that the marriage is complete by the performance of that which makes the parties husband and wife, that moment the coverture begins; and if at that moment he becomes entitled as her husband, in her right, we are totally unable to say that it is not during the intended coverture in a sense which the words will rightly, grammatically and reasonably bear."

54 L. J. Q. B. 148; 10 App. Cas. 1; 52 L. T. 662; 33 W. R. 373; 49 J. P. Distinguished 484; 33 Ch. D. 300 (g. v.)